EEFY!  

So it’s coming, Netflix streaming on the PS3. For those of you who don’t have Netflix, or don’t know what it is:

Netflix was originally a DVD to your door rental service with no late fee’s and no shipping charges (simply your monthly charge and a website to queue things up). Over time they’ve started to move towards being more of a streaming service. After partnering with companies like Microsoft (for the Xbox360, and now the MediaCenter Edition of Windows 7) and TiVo, their streaming service has become hot news!

There were quite a lot of rumours as to why Sony didn’t want Netflix streaming on the PS3 (such as they have their own movie / series store, which is actually pretty awesome quality overall, just expensive). With the big jump that the Xbox360 had (Netflix, Last.FM, etc…) on the media centre role, and the recent price drop of the PS3 making it more accessible, this was only a logical step for the companies gaming console to start to make money (as the Ps2 did).

Interestingly there are two things to take away from this, Netflix is going to roll out streaming directly to the PS3 using BD-Live (Blu-Ray Interactive Internet Enabled Stuff), and then later there’ll be a software update to enable this (and possibly other things??). What’s interesting is that there are a LOT of internet enabled Blu-Ray players on the market that don’t support Netflix right now… also opening the market for other movie streaming services (Amazon, Blockbuster, etc…) which don’t have the same kind of penetration in the home as Netflix does. The real question is, did Sony drive the BD-Live delivery (they own Blu-Ray after all) or did Netflix drive it?

Here’s a few of the sites that have covered it:

http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/26/netflix-coming-to-playstation-3/
http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/26/netflix-for-playstation-3-requires-a-disc-software-solution-com/
http://www.joystiq.com/2009/10/28/netflix-details-ps3-disc-distribution-for-november-confident/
http://www.joystiq.com/2009/10/26/netflix-ps3-disc-must-remain-in-system-until-2010-update/
http://www.joystiq.com/2009/10/26/netflix-is-coming-to-the-ps3/
http://arstechnica.com/media/news/2009/10/netflix-streaming-coming-to-ps3-but-via-blu-ray-disc.ars
http://gigaom.com/2009/10/25/playstation-hooks-up-with-netflix-streams-follow/

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